The first qualifier turned out to be a thrilling encounter at the Wankhede stadium. The Chennai Super Kings managed to book a place in the final of the IPL for the seventh time. As for the Sunrisers Hyderabad, they stand another chance to play the finals. They now face the winner of the Eliminators in Qualifier 2.

In what was a low scoring game, CSK managed to pull off the run chase after being 62/6 at one stage. Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper Kane Williamson fell that they were under par with the bat. He also praised Faf Du Plessis for a spectacular knock that took CSK to victory.

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We were 20 runs short with the bat

The Sunrisers Hyderabad were off to a horrid start as Shikhar Dhawan was dismissed cheaply in the first over. The wickets continued to fall at regular intervals. It was Carlos Brathwaite’s knock which kept SRH in the reckoning. Williamson conceded that they were under par on this surface. He felt that the bowling was fantastic on their part.

“We were too short with the bat, and it was actually a decent surface. We would’ve wanted 20 more. The game did swing our way, and bowlers were outstanding, but we didn’t quite execute it like in the past,” he was quoted as saying by Times Now.

Faf Du Plessis played a beautiful knock

Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled his first three overs inside the powerplay. Hence, it was Siddharth Kaul and Brathwaite who had to bear the brunt of bowling majority of the overs at death. Williamson felt that this was something they would look to improve on. He further credited Faf Du Plessis whose 67(42)* sealed the deal for Chennai.

“We do back our death bowlers, but it wasn’t to be today. Credit to CSK’s lower order. It’s important that we learn from this and take it to our next match. Faf played a beautiful knock and credit to the way they scrapped it. We got a bit of hard work to do, but we’ll do it one over at a time.” He told according to Times Now.